Cliff Taylor: Tracker mortgage scandal hinges on key moment

Scrapping of trackers in 2008 used to justify refusal to offer them to existing borrowers

“Nobody had the slightest idea that ECB rates were going to collapse from 4.25 per cent in summer 2008 to just 1 per cent the following April. Trackers moved from being expensive for the borrower to become a crippling cost on lenders.” Photograph: Ralph Orlowski/Reuters

The tracker mortgage scandal has been close to a decade in the making. The key moment was the decision by the banks to stop offering tracker mortgages to new customers, in most cases around the end of 2008.